Open Meeting Law complaint filed on hiring

SOMERSET — Patrick Higgins has filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the town related to the meeting last Monday night when the selectmen chose a candidate to be the town's next police chief.

George Austin

SOMERSET — Patrick Higgins has filed an Open Meeting Law complaint with the town related to the meeting last Monday night when the selectmen chose a candidate to be the town's next police chief.

Higgins said in an interview with The Spectator on Monday night that he filed the complaint because he feels the selectmen made the decision on what police chief candidate they would appoint privately before last Monday's meeting at Somerset Middle School and he also thinks they informed George McNeil, the candidate who was chosen for the job, before the meeting took place. The state's Open Meeting Law does not allow the selectmen to deliberate about that decision or make that decision in private. In his complaint, Higgins writes, "It defies logic to think that Lt. McNeil was not tipped off by the selectmen after they privately decided to hire him."

"There's a lot of questions there," Higgins said. "It doesn't smell right. There is a saying that if it doesn't make sense, it didn't happen that way and this doesn't make sense."

The selectmen interviewed five candidates for the job on Friday, July 18, at the Somerset Public Library, before choosing a police chief at a meeting on July 21. They scheduled the July 18 interviews and July 21 meeting at the same meeting.

Selectmen Chairman Donald Setters, Jr. said a decision on who to hire as police chief was not made in private before the meeting. He said members of his board did not invite anyone to the meeting when the decision was made on who to hire for police chief.

"It was an open meeting," Setters said. "Anybody could come there."

Setters said McNeil has a boat at Somerset Marina and has said he will buy a home in Somerset.

"That kind of demonstrates his commitment to the position and it doesn't surprise me that he showed up," Setters said of McNeil coming to the meeting when the decision was made on the chief's job.

Higgins wrote in his complaint that McNeil came all the way from Randolph for the meeting last Monday, but McNeil actually lives in Bridgewater which is much closer to Somerset than Randolph. Setters said McNeil felt strongly that he was going to be a strong candidate. He said McNeil came to the meeting last Monday for the same reasons that Captain Moniz and his family and supporters did.

"This is a ridiculous accusation, which is just wasting more of the taxpayers' dollars for the attorney to answer this Open Meeting Law complaint," Setters said of the complaint filed by Higgins.

Setters said he would not address the Open Meeting Law complaint at tonight's meeting. He said he is all done talking about the police chief appointment and said what Higgins has filed is not a complaint or evidence of anything, but is just posing a question.

"It is time to move on and get going," Setters said.

McNeil said he has been to similar job interviews in the past and meetings where decisions have been made and said he had family members and supporters there. He said he had family members and supporters with him when he was up for sergeant and chief jobs in the past and in some cases, did not get those positions. He said he was up for chief's jobs in 2003, 2004 and 2010 when he had supporters with him at public meetings during the process. Before the July 21 meeting, McNeil said the only time he talked to LeBeau was at a meeting that the screening committee for the police chief's job held to interview candidates and the meeting when the selectmen interviewed the candidates. He said Setters came to the meeting when the search committee interviewed police chief candidates to introduce himself to all the candidates. And the only other time McNeil said he talked to Setters before last Monday's meeting was at the interviews of the finalists. He said the only time he talked to Berube before last Monday's meeting was at the interviews of the finalists for the job.

"None of those selectmen ever told me a word about anything," McNeil said of the Somerset selectmen and their thoughts on who would get the police chief's job before last Monday's meeting.

McNeil said if there is any questions of impropriety in the selectmen's decision to appoint him as police chief, people should look at how the search committee ranked the finalists and he said that will add validity to the selectmen's decision. He said a lot of people in law enforcement have congratulated him on getting the police chief's job and told him he deserved it. McNeil said the selectmen went by the book when it came to the hiring process for a police chief.

"The bottom line is it comes down to who is most qualified for the job," McNeil said.

McNeil said he thought he did well in his interview for the job and being from Massachusetts, he felt confident that he had a good chance to get the job. Three of the five finalists for the job were from Rhode Island.

Higgins, who is currently living in Chicopee, said he did not attend the meeting, but viewed it on the Internet, which he said he does with a lot of meetings. He said that McNeil came to the meeting with supporters and does not think he would have done that, if he did not know what the decision was going to be. Higgins said he could understand Captain Steve Moniz, who was a candidate for the job, being at the meeting with his supporters because he was made the officer in charge of the Somerset Police Department while a new chief was being hired.

Higgins said there was no discussion of the candidacies of Captain Moniz or two other candidates from Rhode Island during the meeting which he noted did not last very long last Monday night.

The complaint was sent to Town Clerk Dolores Berge and Setters last week. Under the state law, they have 14 days to respond and if Higgins is not satisfied with their response, he can file a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

"I want the appointment to be vacated and I want them to follow the Open Meeting Law," Higgins said.

Higgins also says in his complaint that he wants the selectmen fined for "continued violations of the Open Meeting Law."

In recent years, Higgins has filed numerous Open Meeting Law complaints against committees in Somerset and Swansea.

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